


A Lovely Light

by soundingsea



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: 1920s, F/F, Female Protagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-12
Updated: 2006-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-07 13:18:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundingsea/pseuds/soundingsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A Slayer has heroic appetites to match her deeds, and her Watcher is there to uphold her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lovely Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jadelennox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadelennox/gifts).



> Written for the BtVS/AtS Missing Stories Un-Ficathon (original request from the Tales of the Slayer ficathon). Thanks to spiralleds for beta-reading and encouraging me through months of writer's block. This never would have been finished without her. Title and section headings are from ESVM's poetry.

## May 1923

###### my candle burns at both ends

A fine mist of rain gusted through the open apartment-tower window, cooling the room with the air of a Greenwich Village spring.

Wynne Matthison stood examining a slim volume, turning it over in her hand. "I cannot tell you how ghastly long this title is, Vincent." Her smile softened her words as she looked at the slip-clad woman lying on the bed.

Edna St. Vincent Millay rolled over onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows and tucking her bobbed flame-red hair behind her ears. "Isn't it a fright?" she agreed. "Just call it 'The Harp-Weaver'; I insist. I can't abide standing on ceremony."

The older woman raised an eyebrow in amusement. "I daresay the Pulitzer Prize for poetry isn't fuss but well-deserved approbation, young miss."

"_Young miss?_ I'm no longer the blushing girl you kissed and asked to your summer-house," Edna said, rising onto her knees and playfully hitting Wynne with a soft pillow.

"You make my intentions sound so insidious!" Wynne batted at the pillow with the book of poetry. "I had to teach you about your calling."

"About that, and being a Slayer too," Edna said whimsically. "I wouldn't heed that Vanzetti fellow they sent before you, so the Council found someone far more suitable."

Wynne's smile faded. "Indeed, I read the most disturbing news in this morning's _Herald_, saying that--"

"Vanzetti and some Sacco fellow are currently imprisoned, unjustly accused," Edna supplied. "But we have at present mounted a valiant effort to free them, and--"

"Oh, let me," Wynne interrupted, her smile creeping back. "'You mustn't worry yourself about it'," she said, in a fair imitation of Edna's manner and delivery.

"Always the actress," Edna said, shaking her head. "Tell the Council Vanzetti will be freed within months at the outside." Leaning forward, Edna twirled one of Wynne's long auburn locks around her fingers.

 

###### it will not last the night

Brushing the back of her hand over Wynne's breast, Edna flopped down on the bed, flinging her pale arms overhead and waggling her eyebrows in invitation.

Wynne made as if to toss the book of poetry at her young lover's head. "It's a Watcher's duty to instruct her recalcitrant Slayer, and you appear to need more lessons."

"After stopping that apocalypse in Austria, with no small difficulty, I'm gladdened to be here with you," Edna said, looking up from beneath lowered eyelashes. "Might we listen to the Victrola?"

Warming with anticipation, Wynne tripped lightly over to the phonograph. She cranked the wind-up handle for several turns before dropping the needle over the shellac record. The slow jazz curled about them like the smoke of a speak-easy.

Turning back, Wynne drank in the vision of her Slayer's taut, well-muscled form. The slip had mysteriously vanished, and Edna's smooth skin, marred here and there by thin white scars, shone in the lamplight.

Wynne stepped out of her own frock and unhooked her underpinnings, grateful for the less complex undergarments of this present age. Sidling up to Edna, she embraced her, nibbling her lower lip and splaying a possessive hand over back and hip.

Said hand met up with an obstacle, an inconsistency in the skin. Edna cursed under her breath and tried to twist away, but Wynne was insistent until her eyes confirmed what her fingers had found. Edna's flank was torn, as if by an oversized claw, and only somewhat healed. The edges of the wound were knit closed but irregular, a dull angry red.

"Austria," Wynne breathed, not so much a question as a bald statement of fact. Being a Watcher meant seeing her Slayer torn up, but this looked worse than anything in the early years of Edna's training.

Edna trailed kisses down Wynne's neck, explaining breathily, "I didn't want you to worry. I heal fast; you know that. Just pretend it's not there."

"How can I pretend any such thing?" Wynne protested, sitting up and brushing off Edna's kisses. But she acquiesced to Edna's magnetic tug as the younger woman rolled Wynne onto her back and clasped her wrists in one strong hand.

Wynne squirmed as Edna trailed her other hand over breast and belly, teasing and arousing. As Edna cupped her breast, nuzzling her nipple, it was easy to forget what damage those little hands could mete out or what injury had been done to Edna herself.

An electric current passed through Wynne, borne on the tips of Edna's fingers as they danced along Wynne's hips and over her mons. Edna stroked and entered her with slippery fingers, as Wynne gasped, involuntarily raising her hips in an erratic rhythm. As Wynne moaned, Edna's nimble touch coaxed her to bliss.

The room seemed hotter, despite the window still open on the rainy night. Done basking, Wynne reached for Edna, layering kisses on her scars and the skin between them. She hesitated not a moment when reaching the healing wound, but kissed it reverently, as a badge of honor.

Lower and lower still crept the kisses, until Wynne was perched between Edna's knees, sliding both hands up her thighs to part them and then kissing up to the juncture of her legs. A play of lips and tongue set Edna to writhing, as Wynne whispered all that she could not speak.

"This is the way it must have always been between Watcher and Slayer. A Slayer has heroic appetites to match her deeds, and her Watcher is there to uphold her." Unvocalized, the words merely guided Wynne's tongue.

Edna danced below her, salt-sweet and breathy, crying out and collapsing. Wynne smiled; even in defeat, her charge was radiant.

 

###### but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends

Reaching for the silver cigarette case on the night-stand, Edna lit one and offered it to Wynne. Wynne shook her head but breathed Edna's smoke, exhaling it in harmony with her Slayer.

Wynne watched Edna sipping her gin and wincing at the sharp pine taste. Drawing in another breath, Wynne held it as Edna paused as if to weigh her next words.

"I'm acquiring the necessary evil of a husband," Edna said, eyes on her glass.

The news crashed about Wynne's ears like a tidal wave, but she smoothed her face, her lips alone betraying her by thinning to a line. "The Slayer married? Unthinkable. You haven't the time for the demands of a household. I forbid it."

Petulant, Edna kicked the wall next to the bed. "On what authority?"

"Really, Vincent, don't take it out on the wainscoting." Wynne reached a tentative arm around Edna's shoulder, only to have her shrug it off. Willful girl, Wynne thought.

"And I suppose your own marriage makes it impossible for you to tour with your acting company over all the civilized world?" Edna asked in acerbic tones.

Wynne melted, her heart softening and her voice following suit. "You know my husband supports all my endeavors, including my business with the Council."

"As will mine," Edna protested. "Eugen understands; he's been married before."

"But not to a Slayer," Wynne said calmly, ignoring the noise of blood rushing in her ears.

Edna contemplated her gin, finally smiling into it before drinking. "A husband diverts questions and makes travel ever so much more convenient. He's the perfect accessory for the modern Slayer!"

"Bobbed hair, rolled stockings, and a compliant man?" Wynne felt the distance between herself -- compromising, following orders while finding her own way -- and this feisty girl, always her own mistress.

Edna embraced Wynne, saying softly, "A man who understands that a woman has needs."

"Does he know?" Wynne asked, unsure herself of what secret she meant.

"He knows I am my own woman," Edna said resolutely. "Fear not; he will never displace my Watcher."

Edna kissed Wynne, an echo of their shared passion evident in her gesture. And in that moment, all seemed well. Wynne wished she knew how Edna did that, what power she held.

 

###### it gives a lovely light

Sliding off the bed, Wynne rummaged about for her clothing. "I'd best be heading back to Vassar," she said as she smoothed her drop-waist dress. "It's a tiresome drive, but at least Charles does insist on the speediest of Alfa Romeros."

"Ah, yes. Your annual play. What is this year's production?"

"Antigone," Wynne said, ducking her head with a smile as she buttoned her boots.

Edna raised an eyebrow. "Unless I misremember, Antigone is the play about the woman who desires to follow her heart, the so-called 'natural' law instead of laws written, stamped, and sealed."

"The very same," Wynne said blithely.

Edna collapsed into giggles. "My dear Watcher, as long as I've known you, nigh-on these ten years, you've adhered firmly to the tomes and texts of the Council. It's all 'research this' and 'handbook that' with you."

"Except where you're concerned," Wynne said with a serene smile. "I learned long ago that no book could predict you, and no law could govern you."

"And that's why you love me so," said Edna, pulling Wynne back down on the bed.

"Above all else," Wynne affirmed, embracing her still-naked Slayer.

The air in the bedroom cooled, and Edna drew closer. The phonograph had long since gone silent, so the only sounds came through the open window: rain and distant noises on the street below.

Wynne watched the low light from the lamp cast them in shadowy relief against the wall, one body indistinguishable from the other.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometime during [Edna St. Vincent Millay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_St._Vincent_Millay)'s college years (1913-1917) at Vassar in upstate New York, she seduced a British woman twice her age, a visiting scholar by the name of [Edith Wynne Matthison](http://www.collectorspost.com/matthison.htm).
> 
> In 1923, Wynne returned to Vassar with her theatrical company. Edna, at the time, was 70 miles south in New York City, having just been presented with the Pulitzer Prize for [The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver and Other Poems](http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/millay/ballad/ballad.html).
> 
> Also mentioned above is [Vanzetti](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco-Vanzetti), whose only certain historical connection with ESVM is that she protested his imprisonment and eventual execution some years after this story is set.  
> 
> 
>  
> 
>   
>   
> Missing Ficathon Request  
> \- Slayer Era/Area: Roaring Twenties.   
> \- Slayer Origin Country or State: Any country influenced by the spirit of the times, whether strongly or weakly.  
> \- Slayer Age (optional): whatever  
> \- Slayer Experience (optional): moderate or master  
> \- Main Story Genre: romance or adventure  
> \- Three other details you'd like:  
> (1) Involve Edna St. Vincent Millay. Slayer? Watcher? Villain? Scooby? But somehow.  
> (2) Involve Sacco and Vanzetti or Scopes (as in the Scopes Monkey Trial) in some way, as characters. They don't have to show up on screen (eg someone can talk about now-absent watcher/villain Vanzetti).  
> (3) Slayer dealing with friends.  
> \- Three things you don't want:  
> (1) Overly dark, though some angst is okay.  
> (2) If canon characters appear, keep them contemporarily canon (eg. Angel is eating rats in the 1920s, Spike is evil)  
> (3) There is no


End file.
